No provider wants their patients to feel nauseous in recovery, but the importance of preventing one of surgery’s most dreaded complications seems a bit higher when children are involved — especially because kids are twice as likely as...

There’s no question the invention of video laryngoscopes changed the way providers tackled the critical issue of airway management. But for years after these game-changing devices hit the market, usage was limited only to those...

You’ve had a chaotic morning. The first patient of the day canceled their procedure and your nurse navigator called in sick, throwing your facility’s entire schedule off track....

Sound electrosurgical safety practices often come down to preventing complacency from setting in among the staff who use these high-powered devices to cut and coagulate tissue during countless surgical procedures.

There’s no shortage of compelling data and research on exactly what it takes to prevent pressure injuries. The trick is finding practical ways to put that evidence into...

A high-volume OR is booked to perform six consecutive hand surgeries. Five are scheduled on the right hand, and one, the fourth operation of the day, which is scheduled for 3 p.m., is scheduled on the left hand....

It looks at one of the core challenges the American healthcare system faces today, through the lens of interviews with experts across the healthcare spectrum, by exploring solutions to the problem, rather than maliciously...

The effects of a single retained surgical item (RSI) are often catastrophic to the unfortunate patients who fall victim to these sentinel events. As for the facilities who commit these never-events, the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority...

This special issue of Outpatient Surgery Magazine is dedicated to safety from both the patient and the staff perspectives. It’s a topic that is near and dear to me for many reasons. As a nurse with more 30 years’ experience working at...

Facilities with the foresight to invest in the blending of surgeon skill and technological advancements are shaping the future of surgery. MultiCare Health System in Tacoma, Wash., added...

Total hip replacements, those life-changing surgeries that allow nearly immobile patients to enjoy a level of activity they thought was gone forever, are already some...

Grant Shifflett, MD, has a simple way to sum up the importance of positioning patients correctly for spine surgery. “Proper positioning is as important as the surgical...

Cynthia Hawks, BSN, RN, CNOR, CSSM, surgical clinical coordinator for neurology and ENT at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center in Shenandoah, Texas, has had a copy of the April 2020 issue of Outpatient Surgery...

Ensuring that reprocessed endoscopes are completely dry during storage remains an important patient safety topic in the world of endoscopy. Residual moisture in and around endoscopes promotes the growth...

Any patient arriving on the day of their surgery is going to be anxious. That anxiety will only grow, and their satisfaction will decline, if their surgery is delayed because of inefficient room turnover times. Getting ORs ready for the next case...

The surgical services team at Ascension St. Vincent Mercy Hospital in Elwood, Ind., is well into year three without a single surgical site infection (SSI). That impressive run has earned its staff the 2022 OR Excellence Award for Infection Prevention....

The team at Eye 35 ASC, a fast-paced, high-volume eye surgery center in Schertz, Texas, doesn’t limit their attention to one or two formal patient safety projects every year. Rather, the center’s tight-knit team operates every day with a keen philosophy...

In a world turned upside-down by COVID and dizzying rates of staff turnover, live, team-based training on how to quickly respond to an instance of the rare but potentially fatal phenomenon of malignant hyperthermia (MH) is...

Preventing inadvertent perioperative hypothermia, a complication that can cause a host of problems such as vasoconstriction, tissue hypoxia and an increased likelihood of...

The most difficult airway is the unanticipated one. Those eight words of advice that Robert W. Simon, DNP, MS, CRNA, CHSE, CNE, heard repeatedly throughout his...